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REVIEW 



^.c^ 

^'^ 



OF 



THE BISHOP OF OXFOED'S 

COUNSEL TO THE AMERICAN CLERGY, 

WITH REFERENCE TO 

THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY. 

ALSO 

SUPPLEMENTAL REMARKS 

ON THE * 

RELATION OF THE WILMOT PROVISO 

TO THE INTERESTS OF THE COLORED CLASS. 



BY 

THE REV. PHILIP BERRY, 

( Formerly of the Island of Jamaica,) 

A PRESBYTER OP THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

IN THE 35IOCESE OP MARYLAND. 



WASHINGTON: 
WILLIAM M. MORRISONS- 
RICHMOND, DRINKER & morris; BALTIMORE, JOS. ROBINSON; 

philadelphia, herman hooker; new york, stanford 
& swords; boston, c. stimpson. 

1848. 






rC 6^t 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by the Rev. Philip 
Berry, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maryland. 



D:^ The ordinary address of the Author is, 23 Fayette Street, Baltimore. 



REVIEW, ETC. 



It is proposed to submit to the reader a notice of cer- 
tain portions of a work by Bishop Wilberforce, — a His- 
tory of the Protestant Episcopal Church,^ — such portions 
as refer to the duties of American clergymen in relation 
to the institution of slavery. And in connection with it, 
we shall introduce some mention of a publication, by an 
American clergyman,^ having reference to extraneous ap- 
peals in the same relation. 

The Right Reverend author, above-named, has evinced 
throughout his pages such an interest in our country, as 
could not fail to enlist much personal regard on our 
part. The work to which we refer may be easily detach- 
ed from its theological connection, by any mind interested 
in the past history of this country. Much of that past is 
therein compressed in a very judicious manner ; and al- 
though the narrative is of direct ecclesiastical purport^ it 
contains in fact a copious representation of measures and 
scenes, of national-historical importance, in the Anglo- 
Saxon settlement of this land. It is not our intention to 
review the work in general, our purpose in producing it 



1 " A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, by 
Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford." Burns : London. 

2 "North and South;" or Letters to the Hon. G. P. Marsh, by 
'^ A Northern Man with Southern Citizenship." * 

* Eirst published in the New York Courier and Inquirer, and afterwards 
in the form of a pamphlet for gratuitous circulation. 1 848. 



at present being no other than that of canvassing its refer- 
ence to the subject of slavery — the authority, the congru- 
ity, and the likelihood of efficacy, to be reasonably asso- 
ciated with such a reference, in such a work, by such an 
author. At the same time, it is our disposition, equally 
as it is our duty, to do him the fullest personal justice. 
These objects shall be attempted in a straight-forward, 
unvarnished manner. 

The work in question is unassuming in its literary as- 
pect, aiming, in this particular, only at representation, and 
at a right direction of the historical spirit in its readers. 
If there be little manifestation of the best capacity of 
the writer, there is yet the music of tenderness in all 
his feelings whenever they appear. A writer of this 
character cannot fail of exciting among us that respect 
which must sorrow at the ill direction of his philanthropy 
and zeal. 

On the Biblical doctrine of slavery, and on the question 
of its permission by the Christian institutes, (however po- 
litically exceptionable it may be,) and on the duties of 
clergymen in slave countries, as much has been said and 
written as ought, we think, to end controversy. The 
question before us at present is the authority or value of a 
judgment peculiarly British, on the position of our clergy 
with reference to the institution of slavery in the scenes 
of their spiritual oversight; that judgment, as ordinarily 
expressed, not differing from that of Bishop Wilberforce. 
However little importance may be allowed by the English 
to the moral philosophy of the South, yet, as we are the 
parties to determine the question in effect, it is with better 
grace that we of the South sit in judgment on the moral 
value of their national sentiment, and the weight of their 
authority, on this subject, than that they should assume 
that position in relation to us. We assume no greater 
judiciary importance, in this matter, than is forced on us. 
Not that we are unwilling to hearken to advice when 
proffered with courtesy by our neighbors. Only we claim 
the privilege of examining our advisers, inquiring into 
their competence as such, so far as this may appear from 
their past consistency and their present disinterestedness. 
And we cannot refrain from avowing, at this point, though 
in anticipation of the proofs we shall advance, the worth- 
lessness of the English national sentiment, on the ques- 



tion before us, so far as the government represents the na- 
tion, and the little confidence which the opinion and ad- 
vice of any individual in England, may consequently 
expect from us with reference to the same. 

Bishop Wilberforce — a worthy son of one who was 
as illustrious for true goodness as any public character 
that ever adorned humanity — has hereditary claim to the 
political position he occupies, which is the highest (we 
suppose) that can be conceded among those of corres- 
ponding sentiments. But the very consideration that such 
are his associations, materially diminishes his claim to be 
regarded as an unprepossessed counsellor. 

Nor is the volume before us devoid of strongly appar- 
ent indication, that he is far from wanting in the rhetorical 
recourses of a partisan, whose scruples, that would be 
paramount in any other hour, are less obtrusive in the 
presence of an enthroned idea or fanatical purpose. Hear 
our author, in his preface : — 

" On one other important point, a few words must here 
be added to the following pages. Throughout their 
course, the author has felt oppressed by the recurring 
question, how he ought to deal with those other religious 
bodies, by which the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
North America is so abundantly surrounded. To have 
entered into their history would, within the limits of this 
work, have been absolutely impossible ; and yet, to con- 
fine himself to the history of one department only of the 
vast host which bears the Christian name, must of neces- 
sity give to his work a narrow and one-sided appearance. 
To escape this imperfection, he believes to have been un- 
avoidable, and he has therefore submitted to it, writing 
the history, not of religion, but of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church. Only would he here protest against being sup- 
posed to entertain any intention of contemptuously pass- 
ing by the many great deeds for Christ's truth wrought in 
that western world by the members of other societies, or 
of pronouncing, by the way, a decisive judgment on any 
of the intricate questions to which the coexistence of 
these various bodies must give birth. He has dealt with 
them only as they directly affect that communion whose 
history he writes ; and in doing so, he has endeavored to 
treat them honestly and fairly, although, from his limits, it 
must be slightly and imperfectly." 
2* 



6 

Now, there is no Episcopalian, among those informed 
of passing events in the ecclesiastical world, who will 
affect, for an instant, ignorance of the reason that Bishop 
Wilberforce omitted the history of every denomination but 
the Episcopal. It was simply that he did not consider 
them as branches of the Church of Christ. Nor does he, 
in this flattering paragraph, even once commit himself so 
far as to call them churches^ notwithstanding that some 
versatility as to designative resources seems to have been 
in exercise ; for he calls them " religious bodies," — " de- 
partments of the vast host which bears the Christian 
name," — " members of other societies," — " various bod* 
ies." Indeed, in a remote part of the volume, where he is 
engaged in enforcing exclusive Episcopacy, he will allow 
" no faltering step swerving towards the sects around her." 
(p. 453). Yet he apprehends it to be expedient, that an 
apology be made to other denominations for not giving 
their history likewise ! But — apart from his known exclu- 
siveness — when an individual advertises his intention to 
present ihe history of a particular denomination of pro- 
fessing Christians, who in the world, of whatever sectarian 
shape, pretends to expect from him a history of other de- 
nominations ? Who, for instance, in a professed history 
of the Friends^ would look for a history of the Baptists^ 
beyond such allusions as might grow out of the associa- 
tion or encounter of the one denomination with the other? 
And more, who, in writing a history of his own religious 
communion, (which, ordinarily, he is presumed to be 
more competent to undertake than that of another — in 
which latter enterprise he would be hardly ever sustained 
by the previous request or subsequent sanction of the 
members of such other society,) — who, in so doing, ever 
before considered an apology required for "confining 
himself" to his subject? Above all, when before did 
a High-Churchman confess, that so to confine himself 
" must of necessity give to his work a narrow " appear- 
ance, — or complain of having to " submit " to such " im- 
perfection" as that of "writing the history, not of religion, 
l3ut of the Protestant Episcopal Church " ? A new thing 
indeed, for such an author to " feel oppressed by " this 
"recurring question" ! It is true, this question is literally 
stated to be " how he ought to deal with other religious 
bodies." And certainly, if the issue had reference to 



points of delicacy, where a trial of the feelings would be 
involved, it might well recur. But the dealing that is thus 
in question, is immediately afterwards explained to be 
merely whether or not he is to write a history of all the 
other denominations, " those other religious bodies by 
which the Protestant Episcopal Church in North America 
is so abundantly surrounded " — " the vast host which 
bears the Christian name " I Now all this apology, together 
with the compromising designation of " intricate,^^ which 
he has conferred in a general way on the " questions to 
which the coexistence of these various bodies must give 
birth," had an aim far other than ecclesiastical or theologi- 
cal, properly such — albeit a moral and political aim that 
needed ecclesiastical instruments. This point is far from 
difficult of solution, particularly with the light incidentally 
reflected from the preceding paragraph, which claims " the 
use of the Church's moral influence in its " (the colored 
race-s) " behalf." While, therefore, the Bishop of Oxford, 
as a Church historian, would sooner have seen other 
Churches to Jericho, than written their history collaterally 
with that of his own, yet, as if he thought to act on the 
principle, that 

" All a rhetorician's rules 

Teach nothing but to name his tools,'' 

he endeavors to leave it open to construction, that he ac- 
knowledges the equal Churchy-historical claims of the other 
religious bodies. He apparenfly hopes thus to remove a 
probable barrier to the recommendation of his ethical 
tenets (already of impressive patrimonial association ^) to 
the less exclusive ministry in the South, whenever con- 
verts to those tenets, within his own communion, should 
aim at the enlistment of other clergy, irrespective of relig- 
ious creed, under the same banner. Furthermore, the 
chivalry of such is appealed to, on behalf of this crusade, 
by an allusion to " the many great deeds wrought in that 
western world by the members of other societies," which 
he graciously "entertains no intention of contemptuously 
passing by," — an earnest, we suppose, of the distinction 

iThe late William Wilberforce was author of a rehgioua work in 
high repute with all denominations of Christians. 



8 

that awaits them in some future history, if they will but 
adopt professionally the cause he has proposed to them. 

What success this publication, invested with such char- 
acteristics, has met with, appears from the circumstance 
that its relation to the subject of slavery has alone pre- 
vented a reprint of it in this country. Independently 
however of any effect from it, it is a matter of fact — and 
the mention of it may be somewhat gratulatory to the 
Bishop — that there are, here and there in the South, cler- 
gymen who while they do not act on his recommendation 
to " declare " (p. 426 — he does not say " preach ") against 
slavery, and who do not avow the extent of their anti- 
slavery views, do nevertheless provide, when they can, 
against the settlement near them of such clergymen as are 
likely to converse influentially in defence of Southern in- 
stitutions. Only they do it in an esoteric manner, of 
which the laity are unconscious. But if, as they believe, 
their duty really extends thus far, then unquestionably it 
extends even further. Nor can we reconcile with strict in- 
tegrity the conjunction of a Southern official residence 
and enjoyment of the public confidence, with the exercise 
of an unavoived pastoral influence against the fundamental 
institution of society, and that on ethical and religious 
grounds which likewise they reserve. Hear Saint Am- 
brose ; — "Si pro otioso verbo reddimus rationem, videa- 
mus ne reddamus et pro otioso silentio " — (De Offic, 
Minist. lib. I. c. 3). There is indeed, as he adds, a "we- 
gotiosum silentium." But he does not intend by this a 
darkly pragmatic deportment. Well might such parties 
ponder the plaint of Bishop Wilberforce, the allusion in 
which is primarily to their brethren in the North, — " it is 
time for martyrdom ; and the mother of the saints has 
scarcely brought forth even one confessor " (p. 436) ; — 
again, ad clerum whether North or South, " there must be 
no timid silence as to great enormities" (p. 456) ; — and 
again, to the South, " What witness has as yet been borne 
by the Church in these States, against this almost univer- 
sal sin ? Has she fulfilled her vocation ? She raises no 
voice against the predominant evil." — In our private 
judgment, no clergyman ought to exercise his ministry 
in a slave State, if he considers himself to have any 
vocation, call it pastoral or social^ over and above such 
as is ordinarily associated with his office in such a 



community, without making it understood that such is 
the case. ^ 

We have depicted in some sort the apparent attitude 
of the Bishop of Oxford, in presenting himself to our 
clergy to instruct and counsel them as to their course on 
the slavery question. We shall next see what peculiar 
claims the Church represented by him, namely the Church 
of England^ has to our special attention. 

It might naturally be supposed that a Church, of which 
the members are continually pouring on us unqualified 
censure for our moral code, now that she has no longer 
any charge over us, had not failed to be a religious pro- 
vider in times when it was her charge so to do. Let us 
see whether it was so ! 

In the Episcopal Church (which, on the present occa- 
sion, we only deal with as a society) it is a fundamental 
principle that the centre of organization, order, and mis- 
sion, is the Episcopal office. In every age of Christen- 
dom, whenever that Church has established missions, in- 
tended to be permanent and diffusive, and not merely 
visitant, she has sent bishops — solely excepting that 
branch of it established in England, which has not cared 
to do so as a common thing, until of late. Contrast the 
period when a branch of that Church was first planted on 
this continent, with the period at which the Episcopate, 
deemed so essential on account of those ordinances of 
which it is the mainspring, was granted to her long en- 
treating children in the west! The former measure was 
put into effect before the year 1620, while the latter was de- 
ferred until 1787 — nearly two centuries ! Many circum- 
stances too of the most romantic worth, resplendent in the 
history of the infant Church in Virginia, constituted a 
just claim for it to be the pet-daughter of any mother 
not unnatural in affections and deportment. Instance 
that chapter in her history, which weeps with pious joy 
over the names of Whittaker and Pocohontas. Witness 
the fidelity of " Old Dominion " to England's ancient 

1 A highly esteemed minister in New England, Mr. Bushnell, says 
that " scarcely a missionary can be found to enter" the Southern States. 
We say in reply, that, let the Bishops or the congregations, in Virginia 
or Maryland, merely beckon to Northern and Western clergymen to 
go and live among them, and these are usually found to answer the 
summons to those States, as fast as the rail-cars can bring them. 



10 

government and Church, in the days of their utter prostra- 
tion in the middle of the 17th century ; also after the 
Restoration, when the first provision meditated, and the 
first one accomplished, by that State, was for the Church 
of England; nor was any measure omitted, by which its 
welfare could be advanced. Yet the Church of Virginia 
was not considered worth investing with a Diocesan 
form, and with it diocesan privileges I ^ 

In Maryland, the Church was associated with the State 
in 1692. The Clergy needed a head, and knowing how 
useless it would be to make application for a Bishop, "be- 
sought the Bishop of London to send them at least a 
Commissary " (an Ecclesiastical judge, in holy orders, 
but deriving from such office no augmentation of his 
spiritual powers). The selection made in compliance 
with this modest entreaty was indeed appropriate. Dr. 
Bray resigned the fairest professional prospects to sacrifice 
himself to this mission, and among his vigorous measures 
laid the foundation of two great missionary societies, 
which survive to this day, and are the only ones incorpo- 
rated with the State — that for " Promoting Christian 
Knowledge," and that for the " Propagation of the Gospel 
in Foreign Parts." " What the results of such zeal might 
have been" (our author remarks) "if instead of being a 
delegated representative of a distant prelate. Dr. Bray had 
himself been appointed Bishop in Maryland, it is impos- 
sible to calculate. As it was, the efforts which depended 
wholly on his individual zeal, instead of springing ever 
fresh out of the system of the Church, scarcely outlived 
his own stay in Maryland ; and this was necessarily short." 
It should be observed that, at this period, there were in 
Maryland not less than 30,000 members of that Church. 

In the other Colonies likewise, the members of the 
established Church were not allowed the same chances of 
propagation that the other religious denominations had ; 
for, without Bishops, the Episcopal Church could not pre- 
sent its various ordinances ; while other Churches were 

1 To her misfortune as a daughter, has since been added as her por- 
tion, the retribution invoked by the ill conduct of the parent Church. 
For the secular power has, Assyrian-like, spoiled her of her glebe- 
lands, and even of her college. It was neglect in her early days that 
occasioned such conduct in " old Virginia." 



11 

independent of Episcopal institutions, except the Koman 
Catholic, which, whether it be a more wise or a more 
natural mother, or both, failed not in her spiritual pro- 
visions. What could the Church of England have cared 
for souls on these western shores, if she deserved from the 
Right Reverend author the charge, that " Only that com- 
munion which clave close to the Apostolic model was on 
all sides cramped and weakened — without the power of 
confirming the young, whilst it taught the young that 
there was a blessing in the very rite which it withheld 
from them — without the power of ordination, whilst it 
maintained that it was needful for a true succession of the 
priesthood " (p. 144). To this charge the learned prelate 
adds illustrations of the spiritual famine which the mem- 
bers of that Church in these colonies were compelled to 
endure, while " year after year their lamentations and en- 
treaties crossed the Atlantic." " Letters and memorials 
from the colonies supply, for a whole century, a connect- 
ed chain of such expostulations ; yet still the mother 
country was deaf to their entreaties " (p. 149). We will 
not detain the reader over the multiplied proofs of this 
state of suffering in an infant Church, inflicted by a parent 
that would neither feed it, nor leave it free to provide for 
itself. The representation must be too heart-sickening to 
any humane reader, however inimical he may be to the 
Episcopal Church, and however imaginary (as to others 
may appear) the wants of the sufferers in question. 
Crying as they did for many a tedious generation in the 
ears of a mother that would neither " visit," nor " confirm " 
(in her own sense of the term), nor "bless" her children 
in the wilderness, it is obvious to the lights of philosophy 
the least pretending, that, in a subjective sense at least, 
these were necessities of an extreme character. 

It has been indeed the policy of the Church of England 
to shift such responsibility on the State with which she is 
united. But she is herself morally and spiritually respon- 
sible for any sins of omission which the State leads her to 
commit. For there can be no compulsion to them, or excuse 
for them, in any portion of the people of God. If the State 
would not comply with a recommendation or petition, 
that it would command or permit the Church to " feed the 
hungry" w4th spiritual provision, the Church should have 
done it, and willingly incurred all consequences. It was, 



12 

in fact, her business, by whatever contract she may have 
devolved it on the State. 

We must not, however, leave the reader under an im- 
pression that the State never talked of taking measures of 
the nature required by the Churches in the colonies, and 
that she never was about to act — Oh, no ! All was to 
have been accomplished in the time of Charles the Second; 
"but a change of ministers cut short the scheme." Then 
again, " Queen Anne's accession promised better things, 
and in her reign the project was heartily resumed " (p. 153). 
"Preparations were made, etc. . . . till" — ? — "the 
queen's death " ! and so through the several reigns, un- 
til the year 1787. All was granted, after political events 
had severed the daughter Church from the authority of the 
parent; and then, the first blessing was not from the 
mother at parting, but from a comparative stranger, poor, 
but hospitable^ — the Episcopal Church of Scotland. That 
Church had been incapacitated from so doing previous- 
ly, owing to the circumstance that these colonies were parts 
of an English diocese, that of London. For the members 
of the same communion in Scotland being non-confor- 
mists in their own quarter of the British dominions, any 
interposition on their part — even for the performance of 
a manifest missionary duty — would have been regarded 
as rebellious. 

After an examination of this historical picture, candidly 
exhibited by the Bishop of Oxford — not a scene relating 
to a brief period, be it observed, but one which comprises 
long tedious ages — who can marvel if we call in ques- 
tion the expediency of English Churchmen offering to in- 
struct the Ministry of the American Churches, in their 
official duty with reference to institutions in their own 
country ? 

It is but justice to the subject to remark on the manner 
in which the members of the English Ecclesiastical body 
have arrived at their present stand-point with reference to 
slavery. We repeat, that, as all are aware, the English 
Church, as such, has not taken any position in that rela- 
tion. But it is not less true that allusion is frequently 

1" Such as I have, ffive I thee " (St. Peter) — "Lift up the hands 
which hang down" (St. Paul). — The Church of Enijland, however 
could not lift up her own hands to bless other Churches without an 
order from the prime minister. 



13 

made to the subject, in public and elsewhere, by her mem- 
bers, lay and clerical, who, on the very ground of their 
Christian profession, assert it to be their duty to brand the 
system. It is however at best a veering position that 
English Ecclesiastics, for the most part, have occupied on 
the morale of slavery. They have simply followed the 
national movements. When the West India colonial in- 
terests were in the ascendant, they were, like the Aristoc- 
racy, eminently conservative on the subject of those inter- 
ests. One strong ground for the position maintained, was 
the exposure of the interests of other proprietary classes 
(such as the Church and the Aristocracy) to aggression, 
if those of the Planters were sacrificed. Their own slave- 
system however being abolished, and their colonial inter- 
ests being prostrated, that position became no longer of 
any consequence to them. They therefore joined in the 
popular movement. This movement was all along con- 
ducted by the spirits of Exeter Hall, who, with " horns as 
Iambs, and speaking as dragons," were permitted to reign 
paramount, the Government having sold the colonies to 
them for a consideration. 

Nor can we omit to notice the immoral developments 
that have attended the tyranny over their colonies by the 
people of England. The British people have herein 
proved themselves to be far from trust-worthy advisers, 
whether morally or politically, with regard to anti-slavery 
movements. It was to be expected that, having abolished 
slavery, they would do their utmost to procure, as a result, 
the development of a state of things favorable to the char- 
acter of the newly ordered regime^ arid to the interests 
of the proprietary class. Yet it is matter of fact, that the 
British public and the State have, ever since the abolition 
of slavery, been pursuing the course best calculated to 
impress the world with the inexpediency of placing any 
confidence in their philanthropic professions. Had their 
object been no other than that of dissuading from anti- 
slavery principles, they could not well have adopted a 
different course towards their colonies. The agents of the 
Home-government, and of the national combination 
against the Western colonial interests, were ordinarily as 
unscrupulous creatures as could be found. They appear 
to have been commissioned to render the free system a 



14 

failure, for fear it might not contain within itself a suicidal 
principle. It was one of their systematic pursuits to 
create as much alienation as they could between the pro- 
prietary body and the newly emancipated population. 
The conduct of these agents, in its worst exhibitions, was 
commended and encouraged. And were it ever disclaim- 
ed, how could one reply but — 

"Quid domini faciant, audent cum talia fares"? 

To shew what the Government would do, and that, even 
as the greater contains the le&s, the character of those who 
administered it, included the worst qualities of their ser- 
vants, it is only nesessary to refer to a colonial complaint 
— never contradicted so far as oar knowledge extends — 
that a fourth part of the compensation-money voted on the 
abolition of slavery, was never paid, either to the colonists 
individually, or into the colonial treasuries, which latter 
were the proper receptacles for it, in case of inconvenience 
in a second distribution. One pretext for this repudiation 
was the cost to the Government of maintaining its official 
agents for the administration of the abolition law I Yet 
this administration, so called, was treated as unfaithful, 
and was almost sure to procure censure or dismissal, for 
the stipendiary -justices, if they decided in favor of a white 
man in their comparatively private courts ; their decisions 
being sent to the Government for approbation or censure. 
The general policy of England towards her West India 
colonies has been such, that there is but one way in which 
it admits of explanation, in congruity wdth the laws of 
thought and association ; namely, that, foreseeing she is 
destined to the loss of her possessions on this side of the 
Atlantic, she desires to render them valueless to any other 
possessor. This, we repeat, is the only construction that 
seems to be at all consistent with the intelligence or com- 
mon sense of the British Government, w^hile there is no 
construction favorable to its morality. It is remarkable 
that a people so comparatively moral, in other respects, as 
the English are, should perpetrate — not for once, or oc- 
casionally, but for a long unintermitting period, so great 
an amount of wanton injustice to their loyal colonists. 
The only conspicuous act, at all creditable to them, was 
that single one by which slavery was abolished through- 



15 

out their empire. On this subject, Mr. Tupper^ has re- 
marked; — "We, with the best intentions, have utterly 
blundered the whole business ; we have ruined our West 
Indies by unprepared emancipation." With humility it 
is that we dissent from Mr. Tupper. We are not of opin- 
ion that the blacks were unprepared for freedom. They 
had, through slavery to the white man, attained a high de- 
gree of civilization, relatively speaking ; and the proper 
period had in fact arrived for their liberation. But all 
the ill effects that would have belonged to prematurity, 
have followed from the most unprincipled administration 
of the colonies that could have been carried out. It is not 
the blacks that are to be blamed for the downfal of the 
colonies. Whatever their defects, their conduct has, tin- 
der the ill influences at work, surpassed the general expec- 
tation. The success of the free system has been perverse- 
ly stifled by the British Government and people. 

It is fair to introduce the Bishop of Oxford's apologies 
for former derelictions of her duty, by the Church of which 
he is a chief officer : — 

" On the subject to which he here especially refers, 
namely, the treatment of the colored race, the use of the 
Church's moral influence in its behalf is that which alone 
he would claim. And this claim he advances under an 
humbling source of the past deficiencies of members of 
his own communion. Still, it must be urged, that they 
were afar from the sight, and therefore irom the real 
knowledge, of the evils of colonial life. Those evils 
would not have been endured, had they been daily sub- 
mitted to the eyes of the laity and clergy of the English 
Church." (Pref.) 

The manner in which the clergy and laity are com- 
bined, and almost identified, in the above paragraph, sus- 
tains further our view relative to the propriety of repre- 
senting, in the manner we have done, the English Eccle- 
siastical body in certain attitudes towards this question. — 
As regards the substance of these apologetic sentences, 
we have to affirm, in reply, that ministers of that com- 
munion resided in the colonies, held slaves, and were 

1 Author of Proverbial Philosophy. 



16 

far better judges of the matters at issue, from "sight," and 
from " real knowledge," than their brethren at a distance. 
If indeed these were evils that ought not to have " been 
endured," then we need no further evidence of the extent 
to which they have been coincided with, by those " clergy 
of the English Church," to whose "eyes" they were 
"daily submitted." We cannot, in this connection, with- 
hold a reference to the singular way in which clerical sen- 
timent and public morality in the colonies was to be rec- 
tified. It was seemingly presumed that persons of any 
description in the mother country were good enough to 
be examples. for the colonists. Selections for this purpose 
were most commonly made without reference to charac- 
ter — and yet, in a certain sense, with too much reference 
to it ! — their ill-qualification for English society being 
apparently assumed to be indicative of their providential 
calling to go to the colonies, — being likewise the more 
ready tools for the perpetration of injustice, as was re- 
markably proved in the dismal period (morally and politi- 
cally such) which immediately succeeded the abolition of 
slavery. Of this licentious class was the very first Bishop 
sent, only so recently as in the year 1823, to the principal 
colony in the British West Indies. The name of this 
man was used in England in attestation of the instant 
success of the free system. He was so far ready for the 
use of the government, that, in a very few weeks after the 
Act of Emancipation was passed, and while ruin knocked 
at the planter's door, he addressed a communication to 
the government, in which he stated, conformably with the 
known wishes of the government, that the result of eman- 
cipation was such as to "encourage and animate the 
good, and to confound and disappoint the bad." This 
communication was not omitted in a volume entitled 
" Extracts from papers printed by order of the House of 
Commons," which extracts, of a one-sided character, were 
picked and published " by authority," as notified on the 
title-page. And whenever inquiry is made what this man 
was, who thus represented in chief those Clergy of the 
English Church, for whom the Bishop of Oxford, with so 
much innocent confidence, apologizes, one can only learn 
that he was a libertine, and that he permitted and even 
encouraged libertinism among such of his clergy as would 
avail themselves of the connivance ; and was never more 



17 

irritated than against those who protested, or preferred 
complaints, against sach of them. We may be told by 
Bishop Wilberforce that tliese evils likewise " would not 
have been endured had they been duly submitted to the 
eyes of the laity and clergy of the English Church." But 
it was proved in the case of this man, as in the case of 
others, that so long as a colonial official sent from Eng- 
land to hold his office, took his diableries with him, 
they did not disqualify him for his colonial station in the 
estimation of British authority.^ Such points as these, 
though more fit to be buried, are here alluded to as be- 
longing properly to the present historical argument. It 
may indeed be concluded from them, that it is far from 
being a settled point that the mission of Bishops to these 
States, if undertaken by the British Government at any 
period antecedently to the present one, would have been 

1 Nor is it always essential to the philanthropists of England that vile 
persons sent to the colonies should remain there. For if such persons 
could crusade against the colonies with more effect at home than in the 
colonies, their greater approximation to a reprobate state would render 
them the more acceptable tools. This is strikingly exemplified in the 
case of a Dr. Palmer, once Editor of the British Emancipator, a London 
paper. He had been one of the special justices (or stipendiary magis- 
trates) before alluded to as appointed for the administration' of the 
Abolition-law. When, for misconduct, he was removed from his 
office by the Marquis of Sligo, then Governor of Jamaica, himself a hot 
abolitionist, the English Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord 
Glenelg* (a professor of religion) reinstated him ; which contributed to 
Lord S.'s resignation. The next Governor, Sir Lionel Smith, not less 
affected as a friend to the blacks, did not hesitate to remove this incen- 
diary the second time. He was then employed by Mr. Sturge and 
others, as editor of the paper above-mentioned. At a public meeting 
for the purpose of concerting measures of injury to the colonists 
(though slavery had ceased) a native of Jamaica ascended the platform, 
and exposed, to his face, this Dr Palmer, for having deserted and re- 
fused all protection and support to his own daughter, a colored girl. 
The gentleman who thus exposed him was Mr. William Smith, now 
Director of the Northern and Central Bank of England, who had proved 
his own real interest in the blacks, by subscribing, for their educational 
use, all the compensation-money he had received for his liberated 
slaves, though he was not a rich man. But, for all this exposure Dr. 
Palmer was none the Avorse. Nor was he regarded by his faction 
as a less suitable person to instruct the world in its moral duties to- 
wards colonists. 

* A brother of the excellent Sir Robert Grant, who was author of the 160th 
hymn in the liturgy of the American Episcopal Church — a very favorite 
!ijmn with its members. 

2* 



18 

matter of congratulation ; although we are sincere in the 
expression of our belief that, in the new era of Archbishop 
Sumner and Bishop Wilberforce, bad appointments are 
almost morally impossible. 

A further apology, from the respected prelate whose 
work is before us, is presented in the following passage : 
" To an Englishman, this silence " (that is, of the South- 
ern Clergy) "is the more eminently matter of the deepest 
pain, because he will at once admit that to his own peo- 
ple belongs the origin of that guilt in which the Church 
and nation of America are now entangled. So little has 
our colonial empire been administered on those principles 
for which our Church has witnessed, that England forced 
on her reluctant colonists the curse and crime of slave- 
holding institutions. Against remonstrance and resistance 
from the West, England thrust upon them this clinging 
evil. Freely do we take the shame of having first begun 
this course of crime ; but the sense of this only makes us 
desire more earnestly that, through the blessing of that 
pure faith, which also she received from us, this guilt may 
be removed." (p. 436). 

This ingenuous confession is one in which, to our re- 
gret, we cannot credit many English Churchmen with 
much participation. They " wipe their mouths and say, 
*we have done nothing.'" Not only so, but they glorify 
themselves, as if their freedom from the evil was of very 
ancient date, and revile our slave-holders, without the ad- 
mission of any qualifying or extenuating circumstances, 
as if it were not the fact that the British Government 
grafted the institution of slavery into our social system, 
and forced the slave-trade on this country, in spite of re- 
peated opposition from the latter. 

Even now, while England asperses this country on ac- 
count of the engagement of some of its citizens abroad^ 
or at least of some American vessels, in the slave-trade, 
who are they that fill those very vessels with cargoes, for 
the express purpose of carrying on a barter for slaves on 
the coast of Africa ? Who, but British merchants ? Mi*. 
Wise, our Consul at Rio, has called the attention of the 
British Government most urgently to the fact, and entreat- 
ed it to aid his own Government in complying with the 
solicitations of lhe former, which it is prevented from do- 
ing through the obstructions opposed by British subjects. 



19 

We hope to have shewn that neither the English 
Church nor the English people, nor any representative of 
either, has any special claim to attention from our clergy 
— or even that claim to it which any other quarter might 
pretend -r- with reference to the subject of slavery. 

In the pamphlet on " North and South," named on the 
first page, a degree of reflection and discrimination that 
would have been impracticable in remote longitudes, has 
been applied to a question which seems to have busied 
men the more as they have less understood it. 

The author is a Puritan, by descent, and in all the early 
associations of his life, as is discernible in his very style 
of writing. Its pithiness and arch gravity are striking. 
The Bible is his only book for literary quotation, whether 
for wisdom or wit, whether he quotes to impress others 
with seriousness, or to produce a smile. The physiogno- 
my of his literature is in keeping with the cut of the man 
in other respects. He is all puritan ; such that almost any 
one who has read his pamphlet, hardly needs to have 
seen him to depict him satisfactorily — not omitting those 
shaggy eye -brows, that, if approached by a not more im- 
posing instrument than a whisker-comb, to be tended 
thereby, would probably repay the presumption with stub- 
born inflexibility. One may fancy such a person as 
scarcely liable to be ever called upon to adduce further 
testimony of his unmixed puritan descent, were the fact in 
requisition. You see, and believe. Any sort of Iiabeas- 
corpus applied to him, brings into court the whole race of 
the Puritans. He is hardly a man of letters, but of much 
discrimination. His pages, which are few, compress an 
extensive sphere of original observations. To those who, 
ill acquainted with their owii latitude, occupy themselves 
in defining that of others, it imparts much to lessen that 
ill acquaintance, and not a little to check or rectify that 
occupation. We commend it to those who concerij 
themselves with the politics of the South. To these re- 
marks a qualification is due, in that we cannot concur in 
his position (quoting memoriter, and therefore probably 
not with literal exactness) — " That God is pledged to 
sustain this- Union, I find no-where written ; but that he 
is pledged to sustain slavery, I find written.. You may 
therefore abolish the Union ; but you cannot abolish 



20 

slavery.'" — The circumstance that this writer is a clergy- 
man, combined with the topics to which he has addressed 
himself, have suggested this notice of his pamphlet, as 
being due to an argument on the relations of the Bishop 
of Oxford and the American Clergy. 



As a Supplement to the foregoing remarks, we propose 
some observations on kindred points of present interest. 

It is due to themselves, that the people of this nation 
should not lose sight of their providential agency in the 
regeneration, thus far, of the African race. There is rea- 
son to hope that our Colonization of portions of Africa 
with descendants of her own sons, will, under the blessing 
of God, diffuse very extensive moral effects ; and that by 
such reaction upon that soil, we shall more than compen- 
sate the sable race for the spoils committed by our fore- 
fathers. Their reduction to slavery is but the womb of 
divinely cherished destinies, yet unborn. And that institu- 
tion, just so far as it is an evil, has been but a burial, in 
order to a resurrection as from a fertile grave. Many are 
the nations that have reaped of the African's toil. And 
this country is as yet alone in yielding the recompense. 
We say alone — for we cannot- admit the measures of 
Great Britain to be of that nature, inasmuch as their at- 
tendant circumstances are sources of manifest discourage- 
ment to the adoption of them by others. She is entitled 
to credit, as having set the example of emancipation, but 
not as furnishing motives to the imitation of it. 

Nor will the present writer withhold his views of the 
destiny of his African brethren, in certain collateral bear- 
ings. 

The extension of our territory to the South is one 
of the best natural guaranties for the advancement of that 
race — obstructive " provisos " to the contrary notwith- 
standing. It will attract the tide of colored population to 
its appropriate latitude, one which is experimentally the 
most favorable for its development, physically and in* 
tellectually ; and thus it lays an additional foundation 



21 

for their progressive civilization, should the privilege of 
self-government become theirs. Truly we see little of 
any thing like self-government in free black communities. 
But we confidently account for it, in the absence of one 
of the two almost indispensable (as it seems to us) con- 
ditions of their advancement — namely, a Southern cli- 
mate, and an ascendant white population. The idea of 
an ascendant white population in the same country with 
a. black one, may appear to nullify the idea of a self-gov- 
erning black popolation. But to speak of the self-govern- 
ment of a certain class of people, is not inconsistent with 
the supposition of their association with another class un- 
der the same rule, with equal rights. We are far from 
excluding the prospect of a community of blacks preserv- 
ing order among themselves and diffusing their own light 
among others. They are a race well susceptible of the 
principles of organization, and have no inconsiderable ca- 
pacity for communicative impress. But they are singu- 
larly defective in energy. They can govern themselves 
in a perpetual childhood : but beyond such a state of 
things they are unlikely ever to advance, unless they oc- 
cupy their soil in common with the white race. 

Whether the legislative adoption of a proviso,, such as 
is that now before Congress, will hasten or defer the pe- 
riod for the extinction of slavery is doubtful. It will make 
but little difference either way. The tendency of it is to 
interfere with the course marked out as that of the appar- 
ent natural destiny, as well as with the interest, of the 
Anglo-Africans. Allusion has been already made to the 
advantage of their freedom arriving, when they shall be 
settled in a climate favorable for their physical and mental 
development. We have no hesitation in protesting 
as^ainst their havina: been ever settled in a latitude north 
of Charleston. Those who have observed the modifica- 
tions of their features and faculties in the different lati- 
tudes, from the tropics to Canada, will probably concur in 
this very decided conclusion. It therefore does not evince 
a due consideration of, or at all events much acquaintance 
with, their well-being, individual and social, to arrest a 
course of events so promising in their results. When 
once the middle States have added themselves to the area 
of free-soil, as they anticipate doing — and as they would 
.immediately do, could they exchange their colored slave 



22 

population for a free white one, then the question as to 
the preferable nature of free-labor in all respects will soon 
suggest itself to the line of States immediately south of 
those mentioned, and will gain ground as it has done in 
these, even until the same consequences shall there result. 
And such will no doubt be the case with the States still 
further south. On the other hand, by arresting this na- 
tural course of events, whenever the abolition of slavery 
takes place in those southern States which adjoin the free 
northern States — which event is not likely so soon to oc- 
cur under these circumstances as under the other — those 
States can hardly escape ruin. For white laborers will 
not be found in adequate number, where there is a large 
black population. And it is found by experience, that the 
indigence threatened by a climate in which winter of any 
severity alternates with summer, does not impel the Afri- 
can, as might be expected, to labor the more. Slave-laws 
will then probably be exchanged only for poor and vagrant 
laws. The slave as he is, though individually fit for free- 
dom, is not sorAally so in the climates now in question. 
And prove what you may on behalf of abstract political 
right, it can go for little — nor ought it to go for more — 
if the ruin of society is to be, too probably, the consequence 
of its concession. 

The proper question now before society in this depart- 
ment of politics^ is, in luhat loay can the best practicable 
combination of Northern and Southern policy be developed, 
for the benefit of the African now on our soil, ivithout in- 
jury to the tvhites occupying- the same soil. 

None need think of diminishing slavery by circum- 
scribing its present area. Southern society may be con- 
sidered as having the possession, or at least the command, 
of the newly acquired territories. To give effect to the 
Wilmot proviso, would require a Wilmot army — at least 
all the population of Pennsylvania, to settle those portions 
of them which are the confines of the present slave-holding 
States. It might possibly he, that such a settlement would 
serve as a wall — not remarkably thick either — along the 
new territories. Imagine however for the moment (if we 
may be allowed to suppose a marvel) that such a move- 
ment for such an object were to take place, — that all, or 
any portion of, the Pennsylvania population were to un- 
dertake a colonization of the territories, with no other view 



23 

than that of investing the soil with free settlements at 
once. Suppose them to have started, and to be now on 
the boundary between the soil of free! labor and that of 
slavery, on their route. What would a well-wisher of 
civilization say to them on meeting them there ? So far 
as we can represent such an individual, he would thus 
express himself; — " Cross the line by all means, but re- 
main among us ; you are the very people we want. And 
there are six objects which you can accomplish by so doing ; 

— first, you will promote free labor by introducing it here; 
secondly, you will extend Northern influences, institu- 
tions, and habits ; thirdly, you will benefit W5, by the appli- 
cation of your industry to our soil, it being more efl^icient 
than that of blacks ; fourthly, you will benefit yourselves^ 
by placing in our reach the convenience of parting with 
our slaves, in disposing of whom we shall obtain the 
means of embarking more extensively in industrial pro- 
jects and improvements, and consequently of engaging 
the labor of greater numbers; fifthly, you will benefit the 
slave, inasmuch as we shall send him to a more congenial 
climate ; and lastly, the cultivation of the new territories 
will be commenced, by settling them at once with our 
colored laborers, who are more adapted to those climates 
than whites." We have supposed the occasion for such 
an expostulation, in order to illustrate more forcibly the 
bearings of the position we have taken, with reference to 
the proviso. 

Repeating the assertion, that you cannot hem in slavery 

— and adding to it this further assertion, that you would 
not hasten its progress to an extinction, if you could hem 
it in — it is worth while to point to the prospective result 
of the passage of the proviso. It will probably be this ; 

— While it will not prevent extensive slave settlements in 
the new territories, the fact of its being illegal will have 
the effect of lessening the encouragement to emigration 
thither; and thus, there will be slavery, slavery, slavery, 
at both ends of the vast area in question — both that 
which it is desired to free, and that which it is an object 
to preserve freed, from it. 

Slavery can be gradually abolished with advantage, 
only by the extension of the area of freedom from the 
north directly southward, through the natural course of 
self-working events, as they now bear. The only artificial 



24 

intervention, should be that of giving an impulse to this 
natural bearing. This may. be effected by sending the 
colored people south as soon as you can, whether they be 
bond or free. To the latter there is indeed an untoward 
obstacle just now; for, owing to the present relations, as 
to sentiment, between the North and the South, free 
colored people are discouraged from living in most parts 
of the South, and from some states are excluded by law. 
But in the event of a combined project for a common end, 
founded on a consideration of the destiny and interest of 
the blacks — even if the collateral interests were to be left 
to take their own course, and to abide their tinie — in 
such an event, the unlimited movements of the free col- 
ored man, would be a necessary and not difficult article. 

It should be marked that, in speaking of the substitu- 
tion of a white population for a black one in some Slates, 
such arrangement has reference chiefly to the climate, in 
which the latter are inefficient as/ree members of society. 
Besides wiiich, it may be observed, that in the warm cli- 
mates, which suit these, the repugnance of caste is not as 
great — a providential circumstance, where they are the 
only laborers to be obtained. And the circumstance is 
occasioned by the superiority of the branches of this race 
in the latter climes to those in the former. In the capacity 
of laborers^ the freed West-Indians have not had fair play. 
The people of England, w^ho set them free, have allowed 
them but a poor chance to prove their tendencies ; that, 
people having been too much bent on their anti-colo7iial 
crusade, to attend to the real interests of the emancipated 
population. Not that they ceased to talk about them. 
They constantly had this class in their mouths — but only 
as men of straw, whose interest was fabulously set forth 
against that of the colonial proprietors, in the manufac- 
ture of public sentiment and national measures. In per- 
secuting the proprietors almost from off the face of the 
earth, they have deprived the blacks of the means of rising 
in that scale in which the state of slavery gave them 
their first lift. Their influence on the evolution of the 
free system has been most untoward. 

The apparent destiny of the English West India is- 
lands is, that they will either sink to the condition of 
Hayti, under the government of Great Britain ; or, if they 
are to have a chance of prosperity, be confederated under 



25 

an administrative colonization or African society, or be- 
come annexed to the United States. In the last mention- 
ed case, they would have, of course, their own state gov- 
ernments derived from their own mixed suffrage, as at 
present, or as they may choose to alter it ; for they cannot 
now or henceforward, be otherwise peaceably governed. 
In the midst of any prospects of this nature that we in- 
dulge in, we must not omit, as pre-eminently above all 
others, the benefits that are in store for Africa, through the 
emancipated family in the West Indies, which we trust 
will one day be pliant to the influences of our " Coloniza- 
tion " or other African societies that may then be in ex- 
istence. 

Thus will God's dispensation of the lot of the enslaved 
African be made manifest, and justified before men. We 
have remarked on the benefit to African civilization from 
servitude to the white man ; by which we mean, that as- 
sociation with the white man, which slavery alone could 
bring about and sustain, in the originally degraded con- 
dition of the African. But while this dispensation has 
been for the benefit of one race, it has been to the stagna- 
tion, and even to the backward movement of the other. 
But is it slavery, in itself^ that has produced this effect on 
that white population which is supported by the institution ? 
It is contended to be so, on account of the state of inac- 
tivity observable in the slaveholding countries of the 
Western hemisphere. It is commonly supposed that this 
inactivity is occasioned by a state of dependence on 
slaves. But it may be asked whether, in those older 
countries that are not deficient in energy, people above 
the menial order work more for themselves than people in 
our Southern States ? They do it in a far less degree. 
The influence in question is demonstrably not that of 
slavery per se. If the colored population of the South 
were all free, there would be the same lassitude of pur- 
pose, and dilatoriness in action, the same mental inactiv- 
ity, in the ordinary Southerner. It is owing to the cir- 
cumstance that those on whom he depends for service, 
are characterized by these qualities. ^ In the West Indies, 

1 Consequently, no country in which the labor is performed mainly by 
blacks — though they may be the most suitable laborers, according to 
its latitude — can grow like one in which it is otherwise. 

3 



26 

it has the effect of producing constant excitement of feel- 
ing, without mental activity. In our Southern States, 
owing to superior domestic influences, this excitement is 
not very extensively characteristic. The slave-owner qui- 
etly makes up his mind that he cannot push anything, 
and that therefore he will not be pushed himself. He 
thus acquires a habit of indifference to the state of things 
around him, and will rarely bestir himself to effort on any 
behalf whatever. The state of things in such countries 
being consequently retrograde, it must sooner or later 
reach its termination. For it is the law of history, that na- 
tions which do not advance, shall one day cease. 

The less interfered with is our own slavery by extra- 
neous influences, the less danger there is of prematurity. 
The South must have its time, however tardy it may 
seem, as in the case of almost every matter, political or pri- 
vate. It will yet do what is for the good of every class, 
at the time recommended by the apparent schemes of 
Providence. But let no man, or body of men from with- 
out, think that by thwarting the interests of the South, 
they can hasten that period. Could they effect anything, 
it would be but an artificial prematurity. How well is 
the position of those, who in feeling, though not in voca- 
tion, are concerned in the course of events in the South, 
defined by Governor Coolidge, in his last message to the 
Legislature of Vermont; — " Humbly following, not run- 
ning before, the indications of the designs of the Infinite 
Mind herein, they may trustfully abide the issues." 

Brattlehoro'' Springs, Vermont, 
November, 1848. 






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